Generally, the need to control access to outside information sources—i.e. via a telephone line—in an institutional environment is well recognized. In order to prevent individuals from incurring large, unaccountable telephone costs which the institution ultimately bears, one must either restrict access to outside telephone lines or institute accounting controls whereby the costs of unauthorized calls can be billed to the responsible individuals.
Telephone systems in correctional environments require additional security considerations. Without appropriate controls on telephone access, inmates have been known to use the telephones to harass outside parties (such as witnesses who testified against them, attorneys who prosecuted their case, employees of the courts, etc.), to perpetrate fraudulent schemes, and to participate in criminal conspiracies (such as arranging the smuggling of contraband into the prison, directing an outside criminal enterprise, plotting escape attempts or credit card fraud). Therefore, it is critically important for correctional management officials to carefully plan, control, monitor and record inmate access to outside telephone lines.
One of the most fundamental problems—which exists both in correctional and other business-oriented institutions—is cost control. To achieve cost control, it is critical that there be individual accountability for each call that incurs a charge to the institution. Such accountability is typically achieved through use of a personal identification numbers (“PIN”). Before making a call from an institution telephone, an individual must enter his PIN. The telephone service provider is then able to deliver to the institution an end-of-the-month telephone bill which lists, in addition to the cost of each call, the PIN or name of the individual who made the call. From this information, the institution can then collect reimbursement from individuals for the costs of certain calls.
While this system of end-of-the-month call accounting functions reasonably effectively in a business like environment, it does not work well in a penal institution. The reason is that inmates show little concern for phone bills they can't afford to pay. Thus, the institution is often forced to absorb the costs of phone calls by its delinquent inmates. Moreover, the fact that account balances are only computed periodically—i.e., every month, week, or even every day—permits the inmate to accrue large, uncollectible phone bills before his access to the phones can be terminated.
Traditionally, penal institutions have addressed this problem by restricting inmates to collect calls only. This, however, still provides the inmates with relatively unlimited access to the outside world, leaving open numerous opportunities for fraudulent and criminal activity, as explained below. Therefore, in a penal environment, it is highly desirable to regulate phone access on an individual, pay-in-advance basis, and to immediately and automatically terminate an individual's phone access when his/her paid-up account reaches a zero balance. Another problem in penal institutions is the inmates' desire to make threatening or harassing phone calls to witnesses, prosecutors, police officers, parol officers, psychologists, judges, and the relatives and family of such persons. Limiting the inmates' access to collect calls only does not effectively address this problem, since an inmate can easily identify himself (to an operator) as someone from whom the recipient would likely accept a collect call. Rather, one should, at a minimum, provide a means that permits a potential call recipient to identify the caller as an inmate before accepting the call, whether that call is placed on a prepaid or collect basis. Conventionally, this is done by initially placing the inmate on hold and playing a pre-recorded message telling the recipient that a call has been placed from a correctional facility and that, if the recipient wishes not to receive the call, he/she should hang up before the call is connected.
This approach mitigates, but does not fully solve, the harassment problem. In particular, it is still possible for an inmate to repetitively call an outside party; even if the recipient hangs up after hearing the pre-recorded message, the harassing effect of receiving repetitive calls from inside the correctional institution remains. Therefore, it would be highly desirable to provide an institutional telephone system that automatically prohibits inmates from attempting to call certain outside persons. Moreover, it would also be highly desirable to provide a method and apparatus for allowing a recipient of an undesired call from an inmate to easily and automatically prohibit all future calls from that particular inmate, or from all inmates generally.
Still another concern in correctional institutions is the regulation of access to telephone systems. For various security and management reasons, it often desirable to restrict a given inmate's telephone access to particular phones, calling times, and to limit the length of calls, number of calls, and number of calls to the same number. Also, to enhance security and discipline, it should be possible to instantaneously revoke an inmate's calling privileges, or to otherwise modify the extent of a particular inmate's calling privileges.
Correctional institutions also typically wish to monitor and/or record outgoing calls. Inmate-to-attorney calls, however, cannot legally be monitored or recorded. Moreover, certain inmates—those who represent particular security risks—deserve live monitoring, as opposed to mere recording. Thus, it would be highly desirable to have a system which automatically initiates the appropriate monitoring and/or recording depending upon the identity of the inmate placing a call and the recipient of the call (i.e., attorney or non-attorney). Likewise, it may be desirable that calls to certain numbers are to be monitored live, while others need only be recorded.
Because the message content of inmate-to-attorney calls cannot be legally recorded or monitored, such calls can serve as a conduit for the inmate's illegal telephone activity. Therefore, it would be highly desirable to have a system which could passively—that is, without in any way monitoring or recording what is actually being said—monitor inmate-to-attorney calls to ensure that: (1) the only two people speaking on the line are the inmate and attorney, and/or (2) no DTMF tones, rapid line impedance changes, off-hook conditions or voltage spikes appear on the line.
The institutional phone system features identified above are well-known in the penal industry and have been implemented in a fragmented fashion in a variety of analog and hybrid analog-digital systems. One example is presented in Brown et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,535,261, entitled SELECTIVELY ACTIVATED INTEGRATED REAL-TIME RECORDING OF TELEPHONE CONVERSATIONS. Brown taught the utilization of a personal computer (“PC”) to interface, via a parallel port, to so-called “conventional” line control cards, wherein the cards were presumably installed as part of a Private Branch Exchange (PBX) switching system. The system in Brown also included a digitizing board and disk storage, which connected to the PC via a standard ISA bus and which enabled the PC to digitize and record a call. Thus, Brown is an example of hybrid analog-digital systems, which provide analog PBX switching combined with digital control and/or recording.
The system of Brown, however, has very limited application. The parallel port has a severely limited bandwidth; so small, in fact, that only a very limited quantity of phone lines can be accessed, monitored and recorded at any one time. Similarly, the speech digitizing board appears capable only of generating a single stream of output, and therefore seems able to synthesize voice signals on only one phone line at a time. Unfortunately, the patent of Brown does not disclose how many phone lines may be monitored and recorded at any given time. Also, Brown does not disclose the actual techniques and physical means used to detect SIT's, rings, busy tones, three-way calls, additional DTMF digits, etc. Brown further does not disclose exactly how the digitizer is presented with an analog signal from the phone lines. Thus, Brown basically discloses only the specific computer software modules, used in the Gateway CPS-4000 system, which implement the basic database and decision-making required to enable the disclosed hardware system to provide event-based recording.
Another system which provided most of the above-mentioned features was disclosed in Gainsboro U.S. Pat. No. 5,655,013, entitled COMPUTER-BASED METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CONTROLLING, MONITORING, RECORDING, AND REPORTING TELEPHONE ACCESS. Gainsboro, similar to Brown, taught a hybrid analog-digital system, wherein the telephone line circuit interface was primarily analog. Analog line signals were interpreted via a DTMF receiver, and analog modules for current and voltage detection of ring, tip, busy tones, etc, were included. Similarly, line signals were generated via a DTMF generator and a dial tone generator. Ultimately, the inmate subscriber line and the central office trunk line were directly physically connected to one another, with no delay or isolation between the inmate's telephone and the outgoing telephone line.
Similar to Brown, Gainsboro disclosed the use of a personal computer to provide database, control, and terminal functions. Gainsboro also disclosed the use of remote, administrative terminals, which were interfaced to the personal computer via a standard multi-port serial card. In addition, Gainsboro taught an interface of the analog line cards with an optional, stand-alone “voice message system”.
However, the system disclosed in Gainsboro had three major drawbacks. First, it did not provide integrated recording functionality; the system was only able to output record signals to a separate recording unit. Second, although the system of Gainsboro was computer-based, the system was very limited in functionality and required separate equipment to provide phone line interfacing, recording, and voice messaging. Third, the output to the external recording units was implemented via analog switches; when recording was initiated, an inmate would hear a click and know that her call was being recorded. Thus, the system remained subject to the limitations of hybrid analog-digital systems.
As the above discussion shows, there is a present need for an integrated system for managing institutional phone activity, which would incorporate all of the above features, avoid the problems of analog architecture, and build upon modern digital telecommunications technology to integrate computer control and switching functions within one functional unit.